Are we going to witness an historical housing price correction amid sharpest rise in unemployment and social tension?...and the minimum you should know in order to protect yourself from this downturn from an economic, stock market and political point of view... with a pinch of humor and sarcasm.

Thursday, 3 January 2008

CRAMO sees a slowdown

"Finnish machinery rental firm Cramo expects to grow in all of its markets in 2008, despite a slowdown in residential construction, Chief Executive Vesa Koivula said."

That's not what the shareholders or investors are saying. The Cramo share went from 38 euro peak to 17 euro low so more than 50 % loss...

"The global financial market shake-up has hit the residential construction sector in Finland and Estonia, Koivula said, but added that growth in its civil engineering services and non-residential construction would minimize the impact."

We know that slowdown in housing construction and lending has nothing to do with the financial meltdown in the US. If lending is slowing, it's simply that affordability has been hit hard after interest rate almost double within a year and an half.

"Despite the changes in the financial markets, with the present forecast for the construction market development, we have still good momentum to grow," he told Reuters in an interview late on Monday.

It's like a heavy train with full speed that suddenly has its engine broken (no more debt), it will still have enough momentum to give the impression that it's moving...but slowly the inertia is being lost and will come to a sharp slowdown....